Gallup Poll: Majority backs same-sex marriage for the first time

posted at 2:52 pm on May 20, 2011 by Tina Korbe

Not since Gallup started tracking the issue in 1996 has a majority of Americans supported the right of same-sex couples to legally marry — but, according to a poll released today, 53 percent of Americans now say they do.

Just 45 percent of Americans expressed opposition to legal same-sex marriage — also the lowest level of opposition in the history of the poll. The results came from the May 5-8 Gallup Values and Beliefs poll.

Last year, the results were almost exactly the inverse: 53 percent of Americans did not think same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, while just 44 percent thought it should be recognized as valid. The nine-point increase in support for same-sex marriage is the largest year-to-year shift yet, according to the poll summary.

Go back even further and the contrast is even clearer: In 1996, 68 percent opposed gay marriage and just 27 percent approved it.

More supportive views among younger Americans and the ever-evolving views of Democrats and Independents drove the shift, as Republicans’ views did not change. Nearly 70 percent of Democrats now support same-sex marriage, up from 56 percent last year, while independent support increased by 10 points from 49 percent to 59 percent.

Within the past year, as the poll itself points out, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” allowing gay and lesbian members of the military to openly reveal their sexual orientation for the first time. The Department of Justice officially decided to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act. President Obama’s official switch can’t be far behind: He says his views, too, are “evolving” on the issue.

But secondly, conservatives and libertarians alike should consider the potential implications of this poll with thoughtful concern. Edward Feser, associate professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College, says it better than I ever could in his essay “What Libertarianism Isn’t.” This excerpt is long, but well-worth the read (as is the full paper, which is some 10 pages):

[W]here traditional moral scruples are concerned, the Hayekian libertarian ought to regard change with as much caution as he would changes to the institutions of property and contract. Nor is it hard to see why this is so, not just at the level of abstract theory, but at the level of the everyday social and political reality. The family, as we’ve said, is one of the main barriers standing between the individual and the state, for it (rather than the state) is the primary focus of a person’s sense of allegiance to something beyond himself, and is also the arena within which a person learns (or should learn) how to become a responsible and self-supporting citizen of the community. When the family is absent in the life of the individual, the state — especially if such other “intermediate institutions” as the church are themselves weakened — tends inevitably to fill the void. Hence the tendency of single mothers, seeking in government assistance a surrogate to absent husbands and fathers, to be among the Democratic Party’s most loyal voters; hence the listlessness and waywardness of so many of the children of those mothers, giving rise to further social problems to which the same party is only too willing to offer state-empowering “solutions”; and hence the self-accelerating cycle of moral decline leading to state intervention leading to dependency and further moral decline which has characterized social life in the Western world since at least the sixties. For such reasons, maintaining the stability and health of the family must be a chief concern of libertarians as much as of conservatives.

But a libertine ethos is manifestly incompatible with this concern. For the health of the family depends essentially on the willingness of its members to make sacrifices for its sake, and this means, first and foremost, a subordination of the fulfillment of the parents’ immediate desires to the long-term project of building a stable and loving home for their children. That, of course, calls for marriage, and also for precisely the opposite of the frivolous attitude with which marriage is currently treated in the Western world — as primarily a vehicle for “personal fulfillment” which one can enter and exit at will. A society in which the family is strong is thus a society in which adultery is abominated (even in presidents) and in which divorce, even if occasionally permitted, is frowned upon. Since so “stringent” (to the modern mind, anyway) a conception of marriage might make it less likely that men especially will enter into it if (as our mothers used to say) they can “get the milk for free without buying the cow,” it follows that taboos against pre-marital sexual relations, pornography, etc., will be almost as strong as the taboos against adultery and divorce in a society in which the family is taken seriously.

In the end, regardless of what happens in the legal battle, gay marriage will always remain a question of morality in the etymological sense — a question of particular behaviors and of how we interpret the significance of those behaviors. The case against gay marriage will remain extremely hard to make as long as we interpret the meaning of sex as no more than pleasure, self-fulfillment and a sense of unity between romantic partners and of marriage as no more than increased social status, legal benefits and a barrier to being alone.

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In the end, regardless of what happens in the legal battle, gay marriage will always remain a question of morality in the etymological sense — a question of particular behaviors and of how we interpret the significance of those behaviors. The case against gay marriage will remain extremely hard to make as long as we interpret the meaning of sex as no more than pleasure, self-fulfillment and a sense of unity between romantic partners and of marriage as no more than increased social status, legal benefits and a barrier to being alone.

I think (I think) some of you are missing Tina’s point. There is a reductionism that has taken place in our culture that has turned sex and marriage into conveyances of pleasure, social status and tax breaks.

For those who argue against it, it’s always and alone in the framework of moral meaning, not in the measures of whether or not someone deserves pleasure, social status or tax breaks.

On those skewed terms, the argument seems unwinnable for either side. It’s like two sides arguing whether we should only eat eggs for breakfast or if eggs are better from Midwestern chickens.

Gallup has become known for his false polls the last 10 years or so.
They did it for “gays in the military” not long ago.

Thru silly wording of questions and bad sampling and I suspect false raw data, Gallup attmepts to lead opinion rather than measure them.
Gallup did DO a poll that claimed gay marriage was widely accepted in California. (not national, thats why they claim “first time” results.
There California poll was to convince voters in 2008 to vote against prop8 but using the band wagon effect.
Even in ultra liberal California gay marriage was defeated.
NOTHING has happened to change peoples minds since.
The idea of marriage being a right is idiotic, almost as idiotic as your sexuality ,no matter what it is, garners a persoon “rights”
Hot air, especially Allahpundit, needs to get off this retarded push for the idiotic

President Obama’s official switch can’t be far behind: He says his views, too, are “evolving” on the issue.

Obama’s views on gay marriage were fully “evolved” long ago. He just couldn’t say so. And any “official switch” will be long after 2012, if then. Even the gay marriage-supporting governors of California, Schwarzenegger and Brown, wouldn’t (and won’t) touch it legislatively.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, hails from Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Must have been a couple of years after I bought the mall jewelry store I owned, a guy came in from one of the department stores. Said he wanted to have matching rings made with a piece of Mt. St. Helens glass and diamonds. He wanted them both made in men’s sizes. I swear, it didn’t occur to me right away that they were for a gay ‘marriage’. When it did, I just figured ‘what the hell’. It was over a thousand dollar sale. The rings ended up looking pretty good and they must have been happy because we started selling a lot of matched rings that were either ladies/ladies or gents/gents. The staff kind of giggled about it at first, but we all kind of came to a consensus that business was business and all our customers deserved to be treated the same way.

Over the next 15-16 years we sold a lot of wedding rings for gay couples. I’m sure we also picked up a lot of anniversary, birthday and Valetine’s Day business because of it too. If you sell a couple their wedding rings, you tend to pick up a lot of their future business, too.

I never had any trouble spending any of the money I made from all this.

Of all the issues to choose from for Tina’s first post, “gay marriage” is what was missing from HotAir?

faraway on May 20, 2011 at 3:32 PM

She’s been posting for days, genius.

MadisonConservative on May 20, 2011 at 3:33 PM

The problem is not the topic per se, it’s that everything sounds like a college newspaper editorial. As a matter of fact, the only pieces on HotAir that don’t sound like college newspaper editorials are AllahPundits. I’ll make an exception for Jazz Shaw’s dog story last week.

Agree to disagree more often. It’s a good thing in the U.S. On this topic there is no sliver of difference among all the HA editors and it frustrates a lot of folks. Let all write or comment as they see fit. Fight for that.

The problem is not the topic per se, it’s that everything sounds like a college newspaper editorial. As a matter of fact, the only pieces on HotAir that don’t sound like college newspaper editorials are AllahPundits. I’ll make an exception for Jazz Shaw’s dog story last week.

DaydreamBeliever on May 20, 2011 at 3:39 PM

True, but really, if all you wanted was Allah-type stuff, you’d have Ace of Spades and other blogs. HA, even before MM sold it, transformed into a balance between Ed’s drier analysis and AP’s biting snark. They met in the middle quite often. Korbe’s been here less than a week. Let’s see what kind of chops she has before counting her out.

When the states changed the definition of marriage in the 70′s and made divorce as easy as buying a car, divorce rates skyrocketed.

It was all in the name of equality, of course, at leaast as libs and feminists described it.

and when that happened, Gay Marriage wasn’t even in the American thought process of a possibility. To suggest such, you’d be scoffed at. Just like libs will scoff at the idea of redefining Marriage and “love” to include Gay Marriage could lead to the next logical conclusions down the road of Polygamy, Child pedophilia, beastiality and you name it.

I liked the quote from the libertarian prof about the limitations of libertarians sometimes lax standards of personal morality. People undo Christian traditional morality at their own peril. Our society has veered from it and we are paying the price. Thanks Tina for including that article excerpt.

It’s not an abundance of emotion to be fatigued by the “oh snap! You disagree on religion/gay marriage/deportation of illegals/the drug war/abortion/etc. so therefore you are a liberal!” tripe. It never f**king ends. I can understand it to an extent when applying it to people running for high office, but not to each other as wantonly as handing out candy.

I think (I think) some of you are missing Tina’s point. There is a reductionism that has taken place in our culture that has turned sex and marriage into conveyances of pleasure, social status and tax breaks.

somewhatconcerned on May 20, 2011 at 3:34 PM

Yep. She made an absolutely excellent point. One of the more insightful ones that have been made about this topic that I’ve read in quite a while. Instead of just focusing on Pro/Against, she actually hit on why opinions are changing.

Oh, I’m not counting her out at all. If you’d read my comments earlier in the thread, I said I think she’s being over-edited and should come out and tell us in her own words what she’s about. I don’t like AllahPundit for his tone, or his snark (and I don’t really care for Ace), but I do like some original thought, and some give and take.

Why do so many people assume that since the only people who would want to have a same sex marriage are gay, that the fact that it would be legal for everyone else is not an issue at all? It’s like saying “what do I care if heroin is legalized, the only people who are going to do it are junkies, and they’re going to do it anyway”.

When you make laws that apply to all of society, all of society is affected in one way or the other. The anti-Western, anti-JudeoChristian nihilists who are the driving force behind pushing same sex marriage don’t give a damn about some fat old gay couple being able to march down the aisle (though they pretend to). They care about the idea of society sending a message to ALL it’s citizens that a same sex marriage is normal. Normal for everyone. Normal, PERIOD.

Once they’ve accomplished that, then they go to work on corrupting pre-pubescent kids who have not yet developed a sexual identity, and turn them into androgynous bisexual deviants. But don’t listen to me. I’m just a paranoid Christianist. No, actually I’m a secular Jew who knows what time it is.

Daniels recited from Kahn’s book: “It would be most useful to redesign the tax system to discourage consumption and encourage savings and investment. One obvious possibility is a value added tax and flat income tax, with the only exception being a lower standard deduction.”

“That might suit our current situation pretty well,” said Daniels, who served as George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget director and was a senior adviser in Ronald Reagan’s White House. “It also might fit Bill Simon’s line in the late ‘70s that the nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose.”

Yep. She made an absolutely excellent point. One of the more insightful ones that have been made about this topic that I’ve read in quite a while. Instead of just focusing on Pro/Against, she actually hit on why opinions are changing.

strictnein on May 20, 2011 at 3:49 PM

Her point mistakenly contends that gays marrying will somehow make straights value marriage less. It will make gays think more carefully about their relationships. Straight people can either ignore the gay marriages or look to them as yet one other example of how two people reconcile differences and commit to a shared life.

So comment on this genius:
“My liberal friends won’t believe I’m a liberal because I’m an evangelical Christian who wants to deport illegals, stop gay marriage, lock up dope dealers, and I’m pro-life. Other than that I’m a die-in-the-wool liberal!” -MadisonLiberal

You have tried to drum me out of the conservative movement for years because I don’t hate teh gheys like you do. Oh, and because I don’t want the government prosecuting people for thoughtcrimes. It’s hilarious. Keep on truckin’.

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century rejected the prevailing concept of marriage along with many other Catholic doctrines. Martin Luther declared marriage to be “a worldly thing . . . that belongs to the realm of government”, and a similar opinion was expressed by Calvin. The English Puritans in the 17th century even passed an Act of Parliament asserting “marriage to be no sacrament” and soon thereafter made marriage purely secular. It was no longer to be performed by a minister, but by a justice of the peace. The Restoration abolished this law and reverted to the old system, but the Puritans brought their concept of marriage to America where it survived. Luther and other Protestants also reduced the number of marriage impediments. Affinity and spiritual affinity were no longer considered obstacles, and consanguinity was interpreted much more narrowly than before. Thus, even marriages between first cousins became possible.

Couldn’t be anything to do with respect for the institution of marriage, conservation of the basic building block of society, or recognition that homosexuality is at heart an unhealthy sexual perversion that should not be encouraged. Must just be pure hatred.

You know that this is not true. You are a good one but too emotional.
Agree to disagree more often.
Schadenfreude on May 20, 2011 at 3:40 PM

The problem is, your ideological compatriots are not so civil. Hard to reasonable debate or “agree to disagree” with people who literally place moral equivalence between homosexuality and sexually predatory pedophiles.

And that is EVERY gay marriage thread here. Like clockwork. Every thread, you will see that garbage.

It’s not an abundance of emotion to be fatigued by the “oh snap! You disagree on religion/gay marriage/deportation of illegals/the drug war/abortion/etc. so therefore you are a liberal!” tripe. It never f**king ends. I can understand it to an extent when applying it to people running for high office, but not to each other as wantonly as handing out candy.

MadisonConservative on May 20, 2011 at 3:47 PM

This is precisely the reason why I’m still here every day but have essentially sworn off commenting. It has also resulted in me reading the comments a lot less because frankly, zealots aren’t very engaging to read or carry on a discussion with.

Any Conservatism worthy of consideration deals with facts. Gay people exists and thus there is a Conservative need to fit them into non-state institutions. It’s not just gay marriage that is needed but greater incorporation of gays into religion. Luckily that is also happening.

thuja on May 20, 2011 at 3:13 PM

Surely you realize that on the heels of claiming conservatism must deal with facts, you entered an opinion that if something or someone exists, it/they must be fit into society?

I’ve been hearing how inevitable the general public’s pivot on the issue of same-sex marriage was for almost twenty years, when the a district court in Hawaii refused to dismiss a discrimination suit against the state for not issuing a license to a gay couple. The fact remains that at the ballot box — where it really counts — there has never been a vote in any state that redefines marriage from one man-one woman; all same-sex marriage victories have come as a result of judicial activism, especially in California, which voted for tradition twice eight years apart.

Again, we will hear that obnoxious refrain “On the wrong side of history.” Screw that. There’s a lot wrong with the society we exist in today that could have been stopped had people summoned the courage to say “Wait, this is wrong. We can’t allow attitudes and trends toxic to our culture to poison future generations because we’re afraid of being uncool.”

Not true at all. You see, I harbor no ill will based on some archaic book, or some innate hatred. Why shouldn’t I tell homophobes to go f*ck themselves?

tom on May 20, 2011 at 4:19 PM

I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I understand that you hate gays for some religious reason that happens to hold no water in the modern world…why should I convince you of anything? Best that your kind just die off.

The case against gay marriage will remain extremely hard to make as long as we interpret the meaning of sex as no more than pleasure, self-fulfillment and a sense of unity between romantic partners and of marriage as no more than increased social status, legal benefits and a barrier to being alone.

Those are all pretty important features of sex and marriage, but I’ll agree there is/should be more to both. The case for marriage equality only gets easier to make the more you understand the importance of marriage.

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century rejected the prevailing concept of marriage along with many other Catholic doctrines. Martin Luther declared marriage to be “a worldly thing . . . that belongs to the realm of government”, and a similar opinion was expressed by Calvin. The English Puritans in the 17th century even passed an Act of Parliament asserting “marriage to be no sacrament” and soon thereafter made marriage purely secular. It was no longer to be performed by a minister, but by a justice of the peace. The Restoration abolished this law and reverted to the old system, but the Puritans brought their concept of marriage to America where it survived. Luther and other Protestants also reduced the number of marriage impediments. Affinity and spiritual affinity were no longer considered obstacles, and consanguinity was interpreted much more narrowly than before. Thus, even marriages between first cousins became possible.

Schadenfreude on May 20, 2011 at 4:18 PM

The Catholic church of the day attempted to exert control over marriage by making it part of your salvation/sanctification, therefore part of the church. This was basically an invention, since there is nothing in the Bible or early church history to suggest that marriage was considered part of the Christian faith. And in fact converts were generally already married before becoming Christians and remained married after becoming Christians. There is a passage in 1 Corinthians 7 suggesting that new converts should stay married as long as the unbelieving partner is willing, but “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.” But that’s about it.

In the Christian concept of marriage*, marriage existed before the first churches and before the first governments, and goes back to the very beginning of mankind. There’s just no reason to suppose that marriage was assigned to the churches or preachers in some way.

* I necessarily have to distinguish the Christian concept o marriage from the Catholic concept, because their concept is far from universal among Christians (ironically) and came about some time after the formation of the early churches. It’s not a backdoor way of saying Catholics are not Christian.

Given the vitriolic responses to this post, I have to disagree. Some people here obviously care enough to get all worked up over it.

Ms. Korbe unfortunately didn’t realize that a post like this would immediately have her shunned to AP’s “RINO” hut in the HotAir backyard. The only advice I can offer her now is to not make any sudden movements or in any way try to fix her hair in a style that would make her look like Kirsten Powers.

I love how when conservatives realize that demographics are changing in favor of supporting marriage equality they all the sudden realize that they’re not in favor of the government being involved in marriage at all. Great job, guys!

Because not all people against gay marriage are homophobes, you bigoted little creep.

MadisonConservative on May 20, 2011 at 4:36 PM

That’s not true at all. Every single person who is against gay marriage, or against the government’s recognitions of gay unions, is a homophobe. The only reason anyone could be against gay marriage is if they have some innate dislike of gays, which is of course homophobia.

That’s not true at all. Every single person who is against gay marriage, or against the government’s recognitions of gay unions, is a homophobe. The only reason anyone could be against gay marriage is if they have some innate dislike of gays, which is of course homophobia.

ernesto on May 20, 2011 at 4:37 PM

And people wonder why terms like “homophobe” and “racist” carry little weight these days.